Rare Enemies and Research

[Exiteer]

Sludge Slime seems like a super high value unit. I'm trying to farm it for its passives but Its only going up one level at a time. I have +20% to research drop rate but +59.3% Research drop amount. Is there any way to increase the rates that they spawn or drop research outside of those stats?

[Ruby150]

Maxing out your research on other units helps, as do having the Research+ from the Shop in regards to gaining more research per drop... Getting more, you need to have more units in your party that raise your drop rate. If you've already gotten the slime, just farm it in Demon King and you'll get it up to max pretty quick

[Exiteer]

Originally posted by ruby.130:

Maxing out your research on other units helps, as do having the Research+ from the Shop in regards to gaining more research per drop... Getting more, you need to have more units in your party that raise your drop rate. If you've already gotten the slime, just farm it in Demon King and you'll get it up to max pretty quick

I don't think I'm anywhere near the demon king. I'm trying to max the sludge slime to get there since he gives a massive spike to DR.

[Faerador]

While it's not a big deal at your current level of progress for the Sludge Slime, for later rare enemies (who have almost BILLIONS of levels to max) you'll definitely want to farm them late-game using the Demon King's summon trick, with a dedicated party for boosting research drops (party, familiar, any equipment boosts, etc). It saves so much time, and I speak from experience.

Initially, I didn't move from areas until I maxed out all my summons' levels. That worked fine, mostly, right up to the first ending. However, once you open up the rest of the game, you'll find that you're just not getting enough seeds to keep your allies at the maxed levels you're achieving anyway, so there's no need to push so hard to boost their research quickly.

As a tip if you do intend to grind a lot of seeds out before moving on to where it's easier: there are some special fight scenes in the story with pirates and/or bandits. I believe one such fight occurs in Academic City, but you probably won't see it in the first playthrough. Another happens later in Coastal City (the next area after Academic City) if you're diligent about trying to do everything (but it's got some annoying requirements to unlock your first playthrough, so most people generally don't see it until the second or third).

In the first few playthroughs of the game, these guys have BY FAR the best seed drop rates in the game. DON'T FINISH THE BATTLES IF YOU WANT TO GRIND SEEDS. Fight them up to the 4th or 5th wave, then exit and repeat the battle to your heart's content. It's a bit annoying because you have to play actively, however, so it's only really good for when you're fresh in the game, having fun reading all the popups for doing your "Actions," finding new allies and grinding them up, and just generally unlocking the world. If you're doing speedruns, this technique is just not viable, and it gets outclassed by grinding the Demon King later, anyway. But it's easier to achieve for a newer player.